Second Sunday of Advent Year B

Second Sunday of Advent Year B

First Reading: Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-1

Second Reading: 2 Peter 3:8-14

 Gospel: Mark 1:1-8

The Gospel reading today invites us to contemplate the powerful figure of St. John the Baptist and the call to prepare for the coming of the Lord. In the first reading Isaiah foretells the coming of the Lord to liberate His people. The context is the slavery in Babylon. It asks us, how prepared we are for the coming of the Lord. Tired of the slavery in Babylon, they had cried to God to save them, they want to return to their own land, the Promised Land. The prophet tells them, your return is near because the Messiah is coming, but how prepared are you for it? He says prepare, the Lord is coming soon.

John is the forerunner of Jesus Christ. He is the one sent to prepare the way for Him. It is very important to understand how his first century audience saw him. They saw him, not only as the forerunner of the Messiah, they saw him as something more, the saw him as the prophet of the New Exodus. What is the New Exodus about? The New Exodus was the expectation of Many Jews through the centuries before Christ up till the first century AD, when God will interven and save His people in the future as the prophets foretold He will do, in a way that is similar to the way He did in the past, at the time of Moses, at the time of the Exodus from Egypt which took place 13 centuries before Christ.

The clues to the fact that he is not just the forerunner of the Messiah but the prophet of the New Exodus has to do with the location where he is engaging in his ministry. St. Mark puts the location in the wilderness, “he appeared in the wilderness … baptizing people at the river Jordan.” Both wilderness and river Jordan are signals that point the Jews back to the Exodus event, the Exodus from Egypt. When the Israelites left Egypt, they went out into the wilderness and journeyed through the desert for 40 years and entered the Promised Land after crossing the river Jordan.

So, the first clue is that John is the prophet of the New Exodus is that he is going out and preaching that the time of salvation is near. He does not do this in Jerusalem or any of the big cities, he goes out into the wilderness. All Israel followed him so that it is like Israel going out into the wilderness. The second clue which is even more compelling is the location where he was baptizing. There were plenty of pools in Jerusalem and several other cities where one could find water for baptism, but John goes out to the river Jordan. What is the significance of the river Jordan? Every first century Jew knew that the first Exodus ended after the crossing of river Jordan. The Book of Joshua chapter 3: 14-17 tells the story of how the Exodus ended. How did the Exodus end? It ended with the twelve tribes of Israel crossing over the river Jordan and entering into the Promised Land. Crossing the river Jordan is one of the symbols of baptism in the Bible.

So, what is happening here is that John the Baptist is declaring that the New Exodus is at hand, in the same place where the first Exodus ended. The understanding that John the Baptist is the prophet of the New Exodus is the reason why he was so popular. The Gospel says, all the country of Judea and Jerusalem came to him. St. Mark quotes from the prophecy of Isaiah, “behold, I shall send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare the way: the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare for the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.” When was the last time the Lord made a path through the wilderness? At the time of Moses during the Exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land. Every faithful Jew looked forward for that day when the Lord will again make a new way in the wilderness as prophet Isaiah foretold.

Jerusalem was a city surrounded by desert; very rough, rocky and hilly. Whenever an important person is about to come to Jerusalem, the people will go out to flatten the road, fill the potholes and repair the bridges. John the Baptist is employing this imagery to tell us that the most important of all persons is coming, the Messiah, the one of whom he is unworthy to stoop down and untie his sandals is coming. You must go out and prepare the path for Him. The path he calls us to prepare is not made on land but in our hearts, not by physical labor, but by conversion of heart. The call to make straight the path for the Lord is a call to reform our lives so that the Lord may come in. The people of John’s time responded by repenting and confessing their sins. That is how we too must respond. The rocky and hilly paths that need to be straightened represent the vices we have to deal with; our pride, self-love, selfishness, sloth, hypocrisy, lust not just for sexual pleasure but lust for money, lust for power and positions of honor. We must do away with envy, jealousy and hatred. We cannot harbor any of these and claim we are prepared for the Lord. This is why St. Peter tells us in the second reading that what we are waiting for is new heavens and new earth where righteousness will be home. He says do your best to live live without spot or stain so that He will find you at peace.

Advent is a time to cultivate the virtue of humility. The humility of John the Baptist is as challenging as it is instructive for us. He said, ‘one mightier than I am is going after me, I am not worthy to stoop and untie his sandals. This is humility. Jesus once said about John, ‘no one born of a woman is greater than he.’ His greatness derives not just from the greatness of his vocation as the forerunner of Christ, but from the humility with which he pointed all to Jesus.

What could be greater than pointing people to Jesus? What could be greater than helping people prepare for the Lord? The Lord is coming and our world is still in need of men and women who like John will help prepare for the Lord. And since, we cannot give what we do not have, we must begin by preparing our hearts for Jesus. We must go for confession and make firm resolve to follow Jesus more closely and to become ourselves men and women who prepare the path for the Lord.

Happy Sunday

Fr Chidi Onwuka msscc